Congress fails on a no-brainer

Express-News Editorial Board

Updated 11:38 pm, Wednesday, September 26, 2012

How many members of Congress could be against a modest immigration proposal that would allow foreign graduates of American universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math to obtain green cards? Enough to kill a common-sense bill to keep some of the world's brightest minds working in the United States and invigorating the U.S. economy.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, authored the STEM Jobs Act. It would have granted 55,000 green cards to advanced high-tech graduates who want to work in the United States — just like the immigrant entrepreneurs who started businesses such as eBay, Google, Intel and Yahoo.

Smith's bill didn't increase the number of green cards. It phased out the diversity visa program, a lottery giving the same number of green cards to entry-level workers. Democratic leaders accused Smith of making immigration a zero-sum game. House and Senate Democrats put forward a competing bill that would keep the diversity visa program intact while adding 55,000 STEM visas.

But Smith's bill wasn't meant to be a comprehensive immigration reform measure. It was intended to improve a small section of the nation's immigration laws by reallocating green cards from a questionable program to one that makes eminent sense.

A majority of House members — 257, including 30 Democrats — supported the STEM Jobs Act. Yet because the bill was considered under a suspension of House rules requiring a two-thirds majority, 158 opponents were sufficient to defeat it.

Keeping highly educated job creators in the United States, rather than forcing them to take their American educations and talents to other countries, should be a no-brainer. The inability to find agreement on this practical reform shows why public approval of Congress is plumbing historic depths.